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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Fat and Happy Online?

Denton Record Chronicle columnist Lucina Breeding wrote an interesting editorial in response to a recent NY Times article about blogging in the "fatosphere" e.g. the virutal community that promotes body acceptance. The article, entitled "Fat and Happy Online?" mentions several popular size acceptance blogs, and also discusses how plus bloggers are often criticized for their stands that just because an individual is fat does not automatically mean they are lazy and gluttonous. What also surprised me was that some of these bloggers also get flack for mentioning that they exercise several times a week.

Says Breeding in her article:

"One particularly inspirational site shows the paradox that fit, fat Americans live in. A woman named Sarah launched a blog about being a triathlete and being big, www.fatgirlonabike. com. Af­ter a bit of exposure, her blog was rushed by critics who told her she was irresponsible (or crazy, or stupid) for “grinding her joints to a pulp.Who knew that fat Americans could be branded lazy by one part of the peanut gallery, and summarily demonized as stupid for being too active by another? "